Praxiteles
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@Rhabanus wrote:
“Yet above all, it falls to you, the Bishops, and to your clergy to offer young people an inspiring and attractive vision of the ordained priesthood. Our prayer for vocations “must lead to action so that from our praying heart a spark of our joy in God and in the Gospel may arise, enkindling in the hearts of others a readiness to say ‘yes’†(Address to Priests and Permanent Deacons, Freising, 14 September 2006). Even if Christian commitment is considered unfashionable in some circles, there is a real spiritual hunger and a generous desire to serve others among the young people of Ireland. A vocation to the priesthood or the religious life offers an opportunity to respond to this desire in a way that brings deep joy and personal fulfilment.”
Young people easily detect pretension and hypocrisy (as well as guff) in their elders . They are inspired, on the other hand, by authentic apostolic witness in the proclamation of the Gospel, dedication to carrying out the demands of the Gospel in union with the Apostolic See, and coherence in conducting liturgical worship.
Rhabane!
Bene de me scripsisti!!
@Rhabanus wrote:
Don’t forget the other compelling portrait of Innocent X, and I am not referring here to that by El Greco, but to that by Guido Reni. It is found in the last lateral chapel on the Epistle side of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Rome. St Michael battles the devil. Reni searched for months and months for the model of the Archangel – a face that combined virility with angelic purity, courage and humility, valour and self-effacement. For the face of Satan, he had no trouble whatsoever finding the model – he gave the fallen angel the face of Innocent X (Pamphili), who refused to patronise Reni.
A lesson here: let churchmen great and small alike exercise wisdom and generosity in the selection of artists. They often have the last word in historical terms.
The famous painting of St Michael the Archangel in the Church of the Immaculate Conception figures in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Roman novel,The Marble Faun.
Well, I would not be too inclined to take Guido Reni’s attitute as typical towards an undoubtedly great patron. Take for instance the the case of El Greco and Philip II of Spain. Philip II did not like El Greco’s work and he systematically excluded him from the decoration of the Escorial preferring oftertimes third rate Genovese painters instead. Clearly, El Greco did not like Philip II’s attitude to his work. But that did not prevent his including Philip among the Apostles in Heaven in his great work: the Burial of the Count of Orgaz in the church of San Tom
From this morning’s quondam Cork Examiner:
20 November 2006
Road toll the last straw for commuters taxed beyond the limit
THERE has been much press coverage dedicated to the subject of drivers avoiding the new Fermoy bypass toll road in favour of the old road.
It is being commented on in such a way that one could be forgiven for thinking these recalcitrant motorists were evading their social obligations in some way by refusing to capitulate to the latest highway robbery.
Both the Irish Examiner and Evening Echo have irritatingly chosen to refer to such motorists as ‘toll dodgers’.
As one who commutes daily to Cork via Mitchelstown and Fermoy I feel it would be more in your line to refer to the motorists who actually conform to this blatant and brazen double charge rip-off as ‘toll-suckers’.
Why should anyone fork out twice (toll and road tax) for the right to use a road that was all of 25 years in the making while we were gridlocked in Fermoy and Mitchelstown.
Let’s look at this ill-conceived toll idea in the context of the larger economic picture.
Firstly, I need to remind the Government responsible for this fiasco that single persons earning in excess of just €36,000 pay income tax at a rate of 42%. They also pay PRSI at a rate of 4%. And they pay levies at a rate of 2%, bringing the total tax take on much of their income to 48%. If they work hard on overtime or earn a bonus, guess what? All taxable at 48%.
Secondly, anyone who purchased a principal private residence in recent years would have paid an exorbitant price for the property and an exorbitant amount of stamp duty in the process.
Many have been stretched to the limit and beyond to repay such astronomical sums. Many more would have had to borrow the stamp duty as well, so the true cost of this tax would run to multiples of the original outrageous sum.
All of this must be funded from ‘after-tax’ income. These same people have now suffered no less than five interest rate hikes in the last 12 months.
If they have a family they have also faced major increases in their VHI bills, home heating oil and motor fuel, all of which must be funded from after-tax income — not to mention general inflation rates significantly above EU levels for years now.
If these same people bought new cars recently, they would have paid completely unjustifiable levels of vehicle registration tax. They then had to pay expensive road tax, although God knows why.
They had to pay car insurance, which included a Government levy.
The petrol has VAT added, of course, and when the car is serviced, what’s that at the end of the bill? Oh yeah, yet more VAT for the Government.
And when the tyres or any other part of the car need changing, VAT applies as well. Parking discs need to be purchased to avoid being clamped and forking out another outrageous sum to the authorities.
In the meantime, the value of the car is depreciating at a rate of knots, a phenomenon that cannot be written off against tax by the PAYE worker.
It’s frightening to think that these enormous amounts of indirect taxes going to the Government for running a car are out of after-tax income.
In other words, all of this is out of 58% of the income left over after the Government has taken its direct slice. Truly breathtaking.
So just as you think every last avenue for screwing the PAYE worker has been utterly exhausted, what does the Government do?
It now reasons that if PAYE workers stay quiet while being relieved of the lion’s share of everything they earn, then surely it can safely get away with adding insult to much injury by charging them to use the roads also out of after-tax income (as if there was any left).
This public/private partnership must have sore sides from laughing at what they are allowed to put over on the Irish public, and in particular on the People’s Republic of Cork.
But €1.60 sounds reasonable, I hear you say. Think again. If you need to use that road twice a day, six days a week, you will need to earn €2,000 gross per annum to fund it. In other words, if you’re happy to use it daily you’ve just given yourself a €2,000 pay cut for the year with no reduction in your income tax.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, they then have the gall unashamedly (and hopefully illegally) to usurp the Watergrasshill bypass, putting the lives of the residents and their children in mortal danger.
How dare they even think about charging for a new road in these circumstances. It’s completely unacceptable. Lobby the politicians and give the Government its long overdue reality check.
Kevin Fitzsimons
Knockrour
Kilbehenny
Mitchelstown
Co CorkANd the next great papal portrait was Titian’s 1546 picture of Pope Paul III (who did decide to do something to sort out the mess by calling the Council of Trent in 1546) and his nephews Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese:
Here is the man himself: Leo X with his nephews Giuglio de’ Medici (the future Clement VII) and Giovanni Rosi painted in 1518 by Raphael, who had become the architect for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s following the death of Bramante in 1514. Here we see the myopic Leo X with his magnifying glass as he reads from the opening page of St. John’s Gospel -an oblique reference to his own baptismal name, Giovanni. The bronze bell in the foreground is quite exquisite and a hint at the troubled times of his reign is to be seen in the distorted image on the ball of the chair-back. It should not be missed that both of his nephews are placed behind the throne indicating their influence on the pontificate.
This portrait of aphael’s set the iconographic scheme for all subsequent papal portraiture. Some PR man that!
@kite wrote:
😮 Wow, I thought I was the only person to see the connection between the vote and the decision due date….:rolleyes: are we cynical or what??
Not at all Kite! Just realistic.
Oh! I think you do Leo X an injustice. Have you never seen the frescos on the ceiling of the Sala Leonina in the Vatican Library depicting him, among other things, as the castagator hereticorum?
Kite!
Are you foolish or what? The 22 December is the perfect date for a decision. By the time everyone will have recovered from Christmas, the whole businss will have been long forgotten!!
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork
The liturgical guffer is back:
St. Mary’s Church, Pope’s Quay, Cork
Thanks to the friend who informs me that the statue of Our Lady on the portico of St. Mary’s, Pope’s Quay, Cork is the work of the Dublin sculptor James Cahill. Can anyone provide some biographical details for him?
@Rhabanus wrote:
http://www.christendom.edu/images/library/column_blessing.jpg
Archbishop O’Brien blesses the Marian column in the piazza in front of the libary of Christendom College, Virginia.What occasioned this monument?
Here is the link to the New Liturgical Movement:
